He allowed his head to sink into the softness of the pillow. He closed his eyes and pinched himself, but when he opened his lids again he was lying in the same exact spot. Was this really happening? Was this what lay in his future? His nights spent protecting the innocent, with Tiffany there to lie in his arms when he arrived home at the crack of dawn?
For once in his life he hoped for the best. He prayed God wasn’t playing some cruel, sick joke on him. After they’d returned to the bedroom, he’d tucked her letters inside the pocket of his jacket. He was still in a state of disbelief. She’d written him letters. He couldn’t decide whether he was looking forward to reading them...or dreading it.
A sharp buzz sounded from the bedside table as his cell phone vibrated. Tiffany stirred, blinking lazily as her eyes opened. The phone continued to buzz.
He looked at the caller ID. Shit. The E.U. calling never meant news about flowers and rainbows.
He snatched the phone from the table, flipped it open and placed it to his ear. “Hello?”
Chris’s voice on the other end of the line sounded desperate. “Have you seen it already?”
Tiffany met his eyes, listening to Chris, whose voice was loud enough to carry.
“Seen what?” Damon asked.
Chris swore. “You’d better get to the nearest computer.”
Without hesitation, Tiffany darted to her desk, where her too-old laptop sat closed and asleep. She opened the screen and hit the power button.
“What’s going on, Chris?” Damon asked. He pressed the button to switch the phone to speaker.
Chris spoke at the speed of light, his nerves clearly getting the better of him. “There is a viral video online. You need to see it before H.Q. gets it taken down. Search for ‘zombie apocalypse Rochester.’”
Damon gestured to Tiffany. She typed in the search terms and hit Enter.
Damon shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around what seemed to be happening. “Please tell me this isn’t what it sounds like.” He could hear the sound of Chris’s fingers flying across his keyboard in the background.
“If by ‘what it sounds like’ you mean dumbass teenagers getting video footage of the bloodsucker who’s orchestrating your virus transitioning a dead guy into a viral vamp, then, yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.”
Adrenaline shot through Damon’s veins. “What are you talking about, Chris? We killed Caius last night.”
“We? Who’s we?” Chris rasped. “Who do you have working with you? And whoever you killed last night clearly wasn’t the right vampire.”
“Never mind who—”
Tiffany beckoned Damon. “Found it.” She clicked Play.
The rustling sound of movement near an unsteady camera echoed from the speakers. The shaky video phone pointed down a dimly lit alleyway. A hooded man with his back to the camera over an unmoving form. A disgusting slurping sound carried through the video. Damon’s heart raced.
After nearly a minute of continuous slurping, the figure pulled away.
“Fuck!” Damon roared.
The camera showed what was clearly a freshly dead corpse. Fang marks marred the victim’s throat, plain as day.
“Holy sh—” The whispering of a teenage boy’s voice was cut off as, judging by the sounds, one of his friends clapped a hand over his mouth.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Damn teens these days and their freaking video phones.
A trickle of blood ran from the man’s neck before the shadowed figure hunched over the body again. Reaching into his pocket, the faceless vamp removed a small syringe.
Tiffany mumbled under her breath. “Holy crap.”
The shrouded figure lifted the arm of the corpse and injected the serum into the deadened vein. When it finished, the figure stood and stepped away, looming over the body. The corpse twitched, jerking to life. The dead man’s eyes snapped open. The irises glowed a pulsing red.
The hooded figure disappeared into the night.
One of the teenage boys swore. The newly turned leech’s head snapped in their direction. It opened its mouth and bared its fangs. A loud hiss ripped from its throat, and with unnatural jerky movements it scrambled into a crouched position, ready to pounce.
“Fuck! Run!” one of the boys yelled. The video blurred and jerked as footsteps pounded the ground. Seconds later the video cut abruptly to black.
Chris cleared his throat. “We are in some deep shit.”
CHAPTER 13
AN HOUR LATER Damon sat facing the rows of monitors in his home control room. Tiffany lingered outside the doorway, pacing. Sweat gathered on his palms, and a dry feeling filled his mouth. The last time he’d spoken with the Sergeant had been directly after Mark’s death. The E.U. designated all accidental deaths as “under investigation,” and Damon had been the Sergeant’s lead witness.
One of the highest-ranking officers in the Execution Underground, Sergeant James Winfield took shit from no one and commanded respect without even batting an eye. He was one of only a handful of men in the Execution Underground who Damon absolutely refused to spar with, because he was not about to embarrass himself by having his hind end handed to him on a platter. With years of experience, age was nothing but a number to the Sergeant. Fifty-six years old and he could still kick some serious trainee and field operative ass. Aside from his salt-and-pepper hair, the gruff bastard didn’t look a day over forty, and he didn’t fight like an old man, either.
The green light on Damon’s switchboard flashed, and the alert alarm sounded throughout the apartment. Tiffany jumped at the sound. On first moving in, Damon had rigged the sound system to blare in case of emergencies, and the Sergeant calling him definitely qualified. With a deep breath, Damon pressed the button to accept the call.
A small beep sounded, and then the Sergeant’s stern face appeared on the nearest monitor, with Damon’s own image boxed in the lower left corner of the screen.
The Sergeant’s lips made a tight line, and he cast a frustrated glare at Damon. “What the hell sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into now, operative?” he barked. “Your town’s little vampire-turned-zombie video bullshit is raising holy hell, operative. Do you know how much damage control that cost the security department?”
When Damon didn’t respond, the Sergeant yelled, “Answer the damn question, operative!”
“No, sir. I don’t know how much damage control it cost.”
The Sergeant eyed Damon up and down. “A hell of a lot. That’s how much. I don’t give a flying shit if the video had nothing to do with you. It originated from your division area, so therefore you’re responsible for it. Understood?”
Damon nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The Sergeant glanced down at a stack of papers lying in front of him. “Your nerdy tech tells me you believed you killed the son of a bitch who was injecting these bastards, but it appears you were wrong. Is that correct, operative?”
“Yes, sir,” Damon replied.
Sergeant James frowned. “You want to explain to me how the hell that happened, operative?”
Damon dug his fingers into the armrests of his chair. At the moment, there were very few things he wanted less to tell the Sergeant about than his failure to follow code and his misconceptions. He really hoped it was a rhetorical question.
No such luck.
The Sergeant banged his fist on his desk and glared at Damon. “Answer me, operative.”
Damon inhaled a deep breath. “I received misleading information, sir. I was under the impression that the vampire at large, Caius Argyros Dermokaites, was responsible for the spread of the virus, and as a result I sought his death. I was mistaken.”
The Sergeant shook his head as if Damon blew it on a regular basis when it came to protocol. In truth, never once had Damon been admonished for a protocol
infraction. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was play by the E.U. rules.
“From whom did you receive this faulty information, operative?”
Damon fought to keep his face impassive. “An outside informant, sir.”
“And who is this outside informant, operative?”
“A family member of a former E.U. operative who is highly knowledgeable about the current vampire situation in Rochester, sir.”
The Sergeant let out a long sigh. “Dear God, Brock. This doesn’t have anything to do with Operative Solow’s sister, the one you always daydreamed over, does it?”
Damon didn’t respond. There was no point. The Sergeant had busted him more than once for reading Tiffany’s letters over and over when he should have had his mind on his training.
Damon heard steps behind him.
Oh, no.
Tiffany stood behind his chair, posture perfectly straight and confident as she smiled at the Sergeant through the screen. “That would be me you’re talking about, sir, and yes, Operative Solow was my older brother.”
The Sergeant appraised Tiffany. “Your brother was a good hunter, Miss Solow, and from what I hear you seem to be following in his footsteps, becoming quite the freelance huntress yourself. Perhaps if the Execution Underground ever allows women to join I’ll contact you.”
Tiffany grinned from ear to ear. “Thank you, sir. I’d like that very much.”
“Brock!” the Sergeant barked. “What is the fine young woman doing with your sorry ass?”
Damon opened his mouth, but Tiffany spoke first. “With all due respect, sir, the misconception was my mistake. I overheard Caius speaking on the phone about something spreading throughout the vampires in Washington State and how it was following suit here. I assumed it to be the virus.”
The Sergeant paused and looked over his paperwork. “From what we’ve heard from our division in Seattle, there appears to be some sort of vampire governmental organization forming, a whole separate can of worms from this viral issue. The shit is about to hit the fan with these bloodsuckers. We need to get this under control as soon as possible.” He folded his hands and leaned toward the camera. “This is what’s going to happen, Operative Brock. With her consent, and since her place in Caius Argyros Dermokaites’s inner circle means that she will be expected to maintain contact with his subordinates, Miss Solow will wear a tracking device that will lead us to the local vampire nest. Our best plan of action is to learn from the inside who is responsible for the spread of this virus, destroy as many of these monsters as we can and scatter their organization. I’m rushing in a team of hunters who will be under your command in this mission. Is that understood?”
Damon nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The Sergeant looked at Tiffany. “Miss Solow, do you agree to act as an extension of the Execution Underground on this occasion and uphold all the same oaths as a true member of the organization agrees to, including putting your life on the line to save those of innocent civilians?”
“I do,” she replied.
The Sergeant gave a single nod. “That is all, then. Operative Brock, your team will be there in three hours.” He pointed a finger at Damon. “Don’t fuck this up, Brock. And hurry up and build your permanent division. I want to get in the request to create your division before the shit hits the fan with all these supernaturals crawling around your city. If anything goes wrong with this vampire raid, H.Q. will blow off the request until these damn bloodsuckers are taken care of, and I don’t want to risk innocent lives because you didn’t do your job. So choose your permanent team and then prep for the raid.” Without another word, the Sergeant logged off.
Damon released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and slumped into his chair. Really? Pick his team now? A video had gone viral—bringing way too much attention to his city—somewhere out there a rogue vampire was hell-bent on spreading an infectious bloodsucker disease, he was expected to use Tiffany as a means of locating said psycho vamp, and yet the Sergeant wanted him to waste valuable time scanning résumés?
He let out a groan. Whether it made sense to him or not, an order was an order.
Tiffany placed her hands on his shoulders. “Are they all like that?”
Damon shook his head. “No, that’s just the Sergeant. He’s an ex-Navy SEAL commander turned E.U. hunter after his granddaughter got killed by werewolves.”
“Oh, wow.” Tiffany released him and stepped toward the door. She paused. “And what’s this about you daydreaming of me?”
Leaning his elbows onto his knees, Damon rested his face in his hands. “I can’t believe he mentioned that.”
Tiffany laughed as she leaned against the door frame. “Well, since you have very little time before a group of vampire hunters starts knocking on your door...” She stood as straight as possible and pointed an accusing finger at Damon. Twisting her face into a scowl, she mimicked the Sergeant. “I suggest you get your worthless behind to work, operative!” she yelled.
Damon leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Fine. But I’ll never get any work done with you in here taunting me.”
Tiffany crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. “All right. I can take a hint, but get to work.”
She left the room, and Damon watched as her deliciously round behind and hips swayed down the hall. He got up and closed the door so he wouldn’t go chasing after her, slam her against the nearest wall and take her hard. Clenching his hands on the desk, he thought about what lay ahead of him. Another raid with him as leader? Was he prepared to do that again, so soon after Mark’s death?
So many things could backfire. Though they did have one advantage this time, which they hadn’t had previously: an informant inside the nest.
He didn’t like the idea of Tiffany going into a nest of vampires alone, but what other choice did they have? There was no other way for them to track the nest, and the vamps weren’t stupid enough to allow her to bring an outsider with her. It was the only way.
As much as he could, he pushed his worries aside. There were too many things he needed to do.
He typed in his security codes, and within seconds Chris’s face greeted him from the monitor.
“Hey, Damon. How’s it go—”
Damon met Chris’s eyes. “Do you have the résumés the Sergeant asked me to go over?”
Chris spoke while he typed nonstop on his keyboard, the clicking sound of the keys forming a strange robotic rhythm. He paused and emphatically jabbed the enter key. “Done.”
Damon’s side monitor flashed as dozens of images loaded. The faces of the finest hunters the Execution Underground offered filled the screen. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s even more than I expected.” With everything else on his plate, narrowing down this list was going to demand hours of work he couldn’t afford to spare.
Chris cleared his throat. “And lucky for you, you have a contact at H.Q. who, despite your often grouchy demeanor, has taken the liberty of assembling a program for you, so you can refine the search and avoid having to read every single profile. What would normally be two or three hours’ work has been narrowed down to less than an hour.” He pointed at himself. “And that amazing contact to whom you owe your undying gratitude is me.”
Damon glared at Chris. “Remind me the next time I see you in person to give you a nice big kiss on the lips.”
“Considering the mood you’re in, I’ll take that as a thank-you.” He reached forward to press the off button on his web camera. “Get to work.”
In seconds the monitor transitioned to black.
Utilizing his touch screen, Damon slid the images onto his main monitor and started his search. It appeared his best option was to organize the candidates by hunting specialty first, before narrowing his search in each category. He glanced over the list of supernatural groups in Roc
hester and their current status. He needed a lot of manpower.
With the E.U. efforts intensely focused on N.Y.C. for years, Rochester had slipped under the radar. But now, with the N.Y.C. division finally gaining control of all their unruly boroughs, focus was shifting. Damon’s division would not only secure the city, it would do it quickly. He would make certain of it.
First things first. Unrest in the Were community due to a possible change in packmaster.
He typed “werewolf” into the search box and roughly twenty profiles surfaced. He started mentally listing the attributes he wanted on his team. Young, able-bodied men, either fresh out of the academy but with lots of field training or only several years seasoned.
Though older hunters held the advantage of being wiser and more precise, he wanted to assemble a team that wouldn’t disband anytime soon. Men near his age who possessed a drive, a fire, that too often faded over the years.
He typed in an age range and came up with three profiles, complete with photos. The emerald eyes of the hunter in the middle photo blazed with intensity.
He pulled up the man’s stats, skimming for the important information.
Name: Jace McCannon
Hometown: Honeoye Falls, New York
Specialty: Werewolf
Experience: Three years field training
Current location: Atlantic City, New Jersey
* * *
INTERESTING. HONEOYE FALLS sat right outside the city limits. McCannon was practically a Rochester native. Damon’s index finger hovered over the mouse. The hunter’s burning eyes made him wonder if the man would be resistant to following orders.
After an extended moment of debate, he clicked the button to add the hunter to his roster. If he was unruly, Damon would whip him into shape. After all, he’d dealt with countless unruly trainees while he led raids during his field training. McCannon would listen, or Damon would send him straight back to H.Q.
Next up: demonic possession. There were two types of demon hunters: those who could kill demons and those who could exorcise the demon from a human’s body, saving the innocent civilian. Looking at the numbers of possession reports on his sheet, he wanted somebody who could do both. He typed “Demon Hunter/Exorcist” into the system and prayed he would get a hit.
Shadow Hunter (The Execution Underground) Page 14